About IRMS Exam

Indian Railways is one of the biggest organisations in India with nearly 72% engineers in Group ‘A’ services. On 24th December 2019, cabinet approved the restructuring of Railways and merger of 8 departments of Indian Railways namely - IRTS, IRPS, IRAS (recruitment in these three departments was through CSE and the governing body was DoPT) and IRSE, IRSME, IRSEE, IRSSE, IRSS (recruitment in these 5 departments was through ESE and the governing body was Railway Board). As a consequence of this merger, they proposed a single recruitment exam for all the vacancies of RAILWAYS.

The main aim for restructuring is to end departmentalism, expedite decision making and bring about coherent working.

Series of Events till date

• Cabinet announced merger of 8 departments on 24th December, 2019

• 2020 vacancies of ESE and CSE were withdrawn by Railways.

• There is no final roadmap for recruitment of IRMS.

• On 5th August 2020 Minister of Railways along with Chairman, Members and DGs of Railway Board, interacted with representatives of various services.

• It was proposed by some members that recruitment of IRMS should be through CSE.

• It was proposed that since 60% of the selected candidates in CSE are from Engineering background hence IRMS recruitment will not be a challenge.

• On 12th August 2020, a letter signed by 5 General Secretaries of Indian Railways Service of Engineers Association was send to Minister of Railways and Railway Board stating that recruitments of IRMS should be done through ESE.

On 17th August 2020 UPSC notified date of ESE 2021 (Prelims) exam on 18th July 2021 and Mains Examination on 10th October 2021, but there is no clarity on IRMS recruitment.